This article contains mild spoilers for “Star Trek: Lower Decks” season 5.
In “Star Trek: Lower Decks” season 5, episode 2, “Shades of Green” (October 24, 2024), Lieutenant Boimler (Jack Quaid) has been assigned to command a team of ensigns as they collect and dispose of all the physical money on the planet Targalus IX. The planet recently acquired replicators and transporters, instantly pushing it into a post-scarcity utopia. Boimler and his fellow Starfleet officers are pleased to help, as the Federation has always been a post-capitalist society.
In a not-very-surprising wrinkle, though, not all the Targalians are happy with the change. Many of the once-rich are resentful that the fall of the plutocratic system robbed them of their influence in the world. As a result, some Targalian separatists kidnap Boimler’s team and cease their money destruction. The kidnapping was poorly timed, however, as Boimler, making a bold and uncharacteristic command decision, let his team have an hour off to party. When he can’t find his team, the lieutenant begins to panic a little bit. He calls Commander Ransom (Jerry O’Connell), but he is unable to help. Surprisingly, Ransom isn’t particularly angry either. It seems these kidnappings have become common for the visiting Starfleet officers.
Ransom then notes that it’s possible to do everything right and still get your away team kidnapped by the corporate elite.
Trekkies will instantly recognize two things about the above description. 1) The episode’s title is a reference to the infamously bad “Star Trek: The Next Generation” episode “Shades of Gray” (July 17, 1989), and 2) Ransom’s line of dialogue is a riff on a famous line spoken by Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) in the “Next Generation” episode “Peak Performance” (July 10, 1989). The original line is, “It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life.”
Peak Performance
In “Peak Performance,” an expert tactician named Sirna Kolrami (Roy Brocksmith) visited the Enterprise to make sure its officers were still sharp in a battlefield scenario. Kolrami arranged a specialized wargame between Captain Picard and Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes) wherein the former would command the Enterprise and the latter would command the broken-down, 80-year-old U.S.S. Hathaway. Each ship was reprogrammed to fire simulated weapons and “hits” were recorded in a log … as were imaginary casualties. The winner would be the last ship standing.
Early in the episode, the android Data (Brent Spiner) challenged Kolrami to a sophisticated video game called Strategema, a “Qix”-like game played on multiple planes simultaneously. Although Data’s android brain is far more capable at strategy than a human’s, he still loses to Kolrami. The loss gives Data an immediate existential crisis and he resigns from duty, feeling that there must be something wrong with him. While Data is performing a self-diagnostic, looking for the reason he lost, Picard interrupts. Picard explains that there are no guaranteed paths to success, and that life is about accepting our losses. It’s possible to make no mistakes and still love. Data accepts this and returns to duty.
Many have taken Picard’s line, written by screenwriter David Kemper, as a life credo. After all, if there were a proven, universal path to success, everyone would take it at all times. It’s far healthier to accept defeats, allow our egos to be bruised, and walk away humbled, knowing that we are fallible. It is how we continue to grow strong.
Of course, “Lower Decks,” being an irreverent comedy series, is happy to turn the phrase on its ear. Sometimes a loss isn’t just losing a game of Strategema. Sometimes people in your command are kidnapped. Picard’s credo is wise, but it’s not going to sound quite as profound when people are kidnapped, buildings are on fire, and everything is FUBAR.
New episodes of “Star Trek: Lower Decks” season 5 premiere Thursdays on Paramount+.
